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The Rise of Deseret AAR

Yep. Deseret.

You know, that little country no one ever sees free, I doubt anyone's ever bothered to play, and also the closest thing I have to an independent country made of my home state of Nevada. Which is totally NOT why I like them so much. It is a nation that starts with the grand total of 20,000 people within its borders at the start, and not a single one of primary culture. That's right -- 0 people in the country at the start are Yankee. We still get a focus point, though, of course.

A pleasant, newly independent serene little republic that will soon(hopefully) rise to become a world power, wielding considerable might and influence. Hopefully. I'm not THAT good at the game, but who cares. Lets have some fun.

MISSION STATEMENT

The goals of Deseret in this AAR are ambitious and possibly impossible. Who cares. I can dream. If one or two of my goals become absolutely impossible to achieve, I will seek out other ones that may be easier. If it becomes too easy to do, somehow, I will extend them.
- To become a Great Power of at least rank 7 by 1936.
- To rule lands in Oceania, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

All this with a starting situation of 20,000 people with a single focus point for probably the entire game, no soldiers, no mobilization possible, barely any money, surrounded by the Mexicans who may or may not want their land back and the Americans who want to go to the coast of the Pacific. We do have some things going for us, though. For example, our low population makes literacy go up really fast, promotions and focuses have much more pronounced effects, and we also have a pretty spiffy flag.

Update soon... as in later.

And, no, this is not my first AAR. Though it is with a Paradox game. My AAR's tend to be very wordy, screenshots will only be heavy during intense warfare. I like explaining things, making jokes, and the like. While the AAR is gameplay focused, it also should and will have a comedy value otherwise I'd find no point in me making one. So, if you like a somewhat wordy but laughable and lighthearted AAR with only the important screenshots, then hop aboard. If all you're looking for is screenshots and a couple sentences, go look elsewhere.

Holy crap, we're independent! Let us remember this day that Mexico kindly just released us.
Well, let's take a minute to see what's going down with our budget and stuff.

After fiddling about with it, we finally managed to generate a tiny surplus. Hurrah for us! Our 20,000 people make barely any tax money (+ appalling efficiency, little manpower to work in RGOs, and other good stuff. Military budget is turned off for now - Deseret has little need of a military for quite awhile. And even if we had it turned up to max, we still couldn't make a single brigade. So why waste what precious little money we have?

I have high hopes for our budget, however. A lot of precious metal RGO's can be found in this area, and if we can manage to get more than a couple thousand workers on said RGO's we could be filthy rich.

Next tab - Technology.
Because we were once part of Mexico and Mexico released us, we have their level of technology. That is to say, not amazing. We're far behind in almost all technologies - we don't even have Freedom of Trade yet! Let us fix this problem immediately.

Seeing as how we have a low population with which to fuel our factories and RGO's, I gonna focus on improving output as much as possible. We may have less workers, but I want each worker to be worth more than some other country's. Output and Efficiency are gonna be top choices for economy for a little while.

Ah yes, Politics.
Deseret is a democracy, but not for long. Eventually we'll get a nice event that'll switch us to a Presidential Dictatorship. I approve of it. We'll probably be reactionary for a good part of the game as a result. No problem with me.

Slavery is quite tempting to allow. It could make up for low population by having slaves around to do stuff. However, I decide against any revoking of reforms for now.

Finally, lets do something. Deseret uses its single and only Focus Point to encourage clergymen. I don't know why, as Clergy are already more than an optimal amount of population, but whatever. I want MOAR.

And lets discuss our plans for the future. These two coastal provinces, Los Angeles and San Diego, will prove crucial. We don't require soldiers to make ships... although we also only have one naval technology. Kind of makes sense, since we live in a desert valley with some nice mountains in the way and a couple miserable, over-allocated lakes.

Our only way to expand and gain prestige without the USA burying us or Mexico attacking us is to attack some uncivilized nation in Asia. But there's a question - Who in Asia is weak enough that we could take them on with just one or two brigades? Let's take a look.

Obviously, China, Korea, and Japan are way too powerful for us to challenge. Vietnam and Cambodia as well. Siam, obviously. Spain in the Philipines would crush our navy. The Dutch would own us at Sea and are much stronger than we. Portugal owns land here too, but even they outnumber and outgun us. But I spot two, usual targets for many a weak nation to attack - Johore and Atjeh.

I change my national focus to encourage Soldiers and turn up the military budget to max... at a sacrifice of more tariffs. It's alright though, Freedom of Trade should fix these problems, and as more people figure out the nation and claim the millions of jobs available our budget will look better.

Oh god... its gonna take quite a while to amass two brigades isn't it.

It is difficult. But that would be the point
I'm good at managing the economy - not so much the wars, so prepare for possibly humiliating defeats, but an extremely rich and prosperous nation. Since about 200 years from the game's date I'll actually be living in the area of Deseret, it better be damned luxurious :P

Probably gonna aim on improving the navy as much as possible, last time I put no effort into my navy at all and got thrashed around by everyone else whenever I wanted to take some overseas land. My land army is gonna be tiny anyway until I get some more soldier pops, so I see little point in upgrading my army.
Tech Path is probably gonna go like this:
- Freedom of Trade (mining and farming output is a big yes)
- High Powered Steam Engine (mining and farming output is a big yes)
- Clipper Design
- Command Principle
- Organized Factories

Pretty much my plan is to expand as much as possible into other lands, get lots of soldier pops, and then take lots of land from Mexico. May form an Alliance with the USA, should be easy because they'll likely sphere me.

That is, if they don't invade me when they get cores on my territory because of Manifest Destiny.

One enemy division is one too many at this point... This looks very interesting (and I have seen Deseret free, once when I was Australia and created it as a buffer state between my California and the USA :P). I'll be reading.

First things first, raising our relationship with the USA is a prime goal. If we can keep it at 200 and end up in their sphere, we can lessen the chance of manifest destiny resulting in a hopeless war for us. Hopefully. So, lets charm the Americans to death, by complimenting their nice industry, and their cool population, and repeating just how much we don't want to be a state. Ever.

Also, I tried it in my other Deseret games and it worked, so why not? Mexico's chance was 'Very Likely' back then, though...

Lame, I hate this game, I'm uninstalling, etc etc...

After spending (Read: Wasting) our diplomatic points, we turn into a Presidential Dictatorship.
Not a big difference, really - we were probably sticking to Reactionary party for quite a while anyway. And I don't have to deal with annoying election pop-ups... yay me!

So El Presidente renames the country to the Most Serene Presidential Dictatorship of Deseret. Much cooler than just 'Deseret'. Like any dictator, he looks back to his plans of conquest...

Crap, they're allied. Never as any nation would I be so scared of two uncivs banning together against me... but I need to strike and kill someone with a SINGLE brigade... and I'm quite sure that maybe 12,000 irregulars and maybe artillery would be more than capable of handling the 3,000 cavalry I'll probably use. Shame. But wait - there is hope yet for Deseret's fledgling military!

Zero military power. I like that. I like that alot. I like it so much, I consider starting my military. Well, the navy part anyway.

Sadly, I decide against it. Deseret's grand total of ~270 pounds and whimsical gain of 0.7 daily kind of make it hard to afford such nice things as ships, and El Presidente is reluctant to drive his nation into any debt. So, we put that on hold for now.

And our first brigade, is still a long ways away. But hey, 600 is better than the 230 we started with! PROGRESS.

Speaking of progress...
YES! Freedom of Trade! Each worker is now worth 40% more! Glorious that The Most Serene Presidential Dictatorship of Deseret be, lets check out our new budget!

Before:

After:

Holy crap, I'm RICH! Lets go blow off this money on frigates and military budget now.

Next in order for Mormon engineers to develop is the Practical Steam Engine. We wants it so that each worker is worth now a total of 105% more. We'd double our monies!

Thank you all those who read my AAR and subscribe toit, I really appreciate it. Means more than you think

And one thing I find particularly interesting - In barely 1 year of gameplay, you can actually watch my literacy go up in this AAR.

Started at 10%, and its already 14.2% or so !

20,000 people is easy to educate, I guess.

Also, on a related note doesn't Presidential Dictatorship reduce the chance of immigrants turning up in the American countries? Not sure if the government type has anything to do with it, but I heard somewhere that democracies in the Americas get more migrants than PD's an' such...

Also, on a related note doesn't Presidential Dictatorship reduce the chance of immigrants turning up in the American countries? Not sure if the government type has anything to do with it, but I heard somewhere that democracies in the Americas get more migrants than PD's an' such...

Democracies in Americas get tons of immigrants. PD's dont. They may get a little late 19th century if you have a lot of jobs, but mostly dont get immigrants.

Also, I'm extremely terrible at doing math in my head, so the 105 figure is probably way wrong :P

I can never figure out how to calculate the cumulative bonus according to Paradox. My understanding the +40%, +15%, +70% applies only to the base number not the cumulative number. In other words the more bonus you get the lower real impact they actually have overall. It's quite paradoxical (sorry for the pun!)